


swingsets and bitter daylight

by rosekings



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, because who doesn't love a good swingset, post-gate closing, swingsets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-03-09 23:04:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18926797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekings/pseuds/rosekings
Summary: They walk in silence. Max's hair is wet and cold against the back of her neck, but it has the same grounding effect on her as Lucas’ shirt does. It reminds her that she can still feel things; she is still real.They reach the park before long and like Lucas promised, it’s empty. Max makes a beeline for the swings; she hears Lucas chuckle at her quiet eagerness, and then he takes the swing next to her. She slowly pushes herself back and forth and tips her head up to the brilliant blue sky. She inhales, sharp, clean oxygen flooding her lungs. She doesn’t close her eyes. She can’t.





	swingsets and bitter daylight

Everything is over before Max even realizes it. The headlights of Billy’s car surge bright in her eyes, in her friends’ eyes, and the screeching of the monsters in the tunnels beneath them disappears. They stand there in the cold, breathless and apprehensive of the sudden silence, holding fistfuls of each other’s jackets and shirts and backpack straps to make sure they don’t lose someone else. Max’s mind is stumbling over itself as she tries to comprehend the new situation. The car lights fade back to normal and the bracing nighttime air wraps around them with a peaceful quiet that’s almost startling.

It’s really over. They just don’t know if their efforts were in vain or not yet.

“What do we do now?” someone asks after a long minute. She isn’t sure who spoke. Maybe it was her.

They go home. Steve drives.

 

Max is tired. 

Numb and detached, she drags herself up into the Byers house with her friends and they find it empty. Shards of glass and papers upon papers of chaotic blue drawings are scattered everywhere. Billy is gone – all that remains of his attack is the empty syringe, a gash in the floor, and the bruises on Lucas’ neck and the blood on Steve’s face. She can barely look at them; how she wishes she had done more, sooner. 

The fates of El and Will are still in the wind and Max knows that neither she nor anyone else will be able to rest until everyone has come home, so she starts moving. If she doesn’t, the waiting will kill her. The jagged memory of black and blue monsters clawing at the doors of the bus will kill her. The dread of how she might have just made things so much worse with Billy will kill her. The fear of how close she and her friends came to death tonight in those corrupt, claustrophobic tunnels will kill her. Her adrenaline is all gone; there’s nothing to hold any of it back now except her own force of will, and she doesn’t have much of that left at the moment.

There’s not much talking as the five of them shuffle around the house, finishing the cleaning they didn’t get around to earlier to keep themselves busy. Max tries to keep everything at bay by focusing on something good. The easiest thing to latch on to is Lucas, his kind eyes and even kinder words. Not once since their first meeting has he given up on her. While the rest of the party still feel somewhat like strangers to her, Lucas has already carved out a place for her and made sure that she knows he wants her there. _After how I’ve treated him, I don’t even deserve it,_ she thinks sadly, looking over at him. He’s on the floor by the couch, scooping Will’s drawings into a trash bag. He’s clearly just as exhausted as she is, but when he looks up and catches her eye he offers her a smile. She tries to return it but finds that she can’t, so she hopes her eyes get the message across. From his expression, she thinks it does, and her heart eases.

Joyce, Jonathan, Nancy, and Will return first. Sighs of relief and tight hugs go around and questions of their wellbeing are met with quick reassurances. Will looks worse than all of them put together, his skin ashen, his eyes bloodshot and distant, sweat dripping down his temples. But he’s alive, he’s breathing, so all the risks they took weren’t for nothing. Joyce takes him to a room down the hall (Max still isn’t familiar with the layout of the house) and neither of them reappear for a long while. Nancy and Jonathan emerge from another room after a few minutes, their faces cleaned up and a stack of blankets and pillows in hand.

“If anyone wants to stay the night here, you’re welcome to,” Jonathan says, setting the pile of bedding on the couch. Max doesn’t need to ask why he’s offering – none of them want to go home and fight off the promised nightmares alone. She hopes tomorrow night will be easier, after they’ve had a chance to rationalize everything in the comforting daylight, but tonight…she doesn’t even want to think about what could be waiting for her at home. 

“Have Hopper and El not come back yet?” Nancy asks, hovering by the kitchen table. Max isn’t sure who her question was directed at but since she’s the closest, she shakes her head. It occurs to her that Nancy and Jonathan probably don’t even know her name, let alone how she came to join this motley group. _It isn’t important right now,_ she decides.

Mike is inconsolable – he paces in front of the broken window and chews his nails down to the quick and he’s so ramped up that it’s putting Max on edge even more than she already is. She gets it, but she can see it’s for two reasons: the need to keep his mind off everything, just like she and all the rest of them are trying to do – and El. Max wonders just how deep Mike is in it with her. When she saw their reunion earlier, the way they clung to each other made her feel like she had walked in on a private moment. Maybe it’s love. Max isn’t sure if she’d recognize it.

Finally, _finally_ , the police chief’s truck rumbles into the driveway. Mike is first out the door and the rest of them follow after him, beyond relieved to see their telekinetic savior living and breathing. Max trails behind the group – she and El don’t even know each other, and besides, El already has enough people smothering her.

That’s what Max tells herself as she swallows back the hot lump in her throat. Before, El made it clear how she felt about Max, and as much as Max would love to try, she can’t pretend the rejection doesn’t sting.

Shortly after El and Hopper come inside and a headcount is made, the time comes to face sleep. Max knows she’s going to stay over even before they start discussing who will sleep where, and all of a sudden she’s struck with the heart-stopping fear that Lucas, her only ally here, will go home.

She quickly moves from her seat at the kitchen table over to where Lucas stands next to the wall, watching them divvy up blankets and pillows. He gives her a tired smile when he sees her.

“Are you going to go home?” she asks him quietly, without preamble. 

“Oh, I – I don’t really know yet. If there’s not enough sleeping bags, I might.” He frowns. “Why? Is everything okay?”

Max hesitates, not quite sure how to put her need for him to stay into words. “I just – I can’t go home tonight. Billy might be there and I don’t know what to tell my mom and I don’t want to walk all the way there in the dark, and I just…please don’t let me be alone here, Lucas. Please.”

She can hear the desperation in her voice and feel the burning behind her eyes and she hates it, especially when they both know he doesn’t owe her anything, but his gaze softens immediately and he nods.

“Yeah, of course I’ll stay. Don’t even worry about it, okay? I’ll stay with you.”

She’s afraid that if she tries to speak she’ll burst into tears now that the terror and the adrenaline and the exhaustion of the night has finally caught up with her, so she just nods gratefully and he wraps an arm around her shoulders. Somehow she manages to choke out a _thank you,_ and he squeezes her closer.

“I’m not going anywhere, Max. I promise.”

 

The next day is worse. It shouldn’t be, but somehow it is. After a night of tossing and turning without ever truly achieving sleep, Max opens her eyes to cold daylight streaming in through the broken windows. Her bones are heavy, her mind numbed to a standstill. All her emotions have all melted into one dark, unfeeling pit in her stomach, like when a kid tries to combine all their crayons to make a rainbow but just ends up with black. Lucas is still asleep next to her and it seems impossible that he could look so peaceful. _At least one of us is,_ she thinks. 

“Do you want to come to my house for a little bit?” he asks her once they’ve all gotten up and helped put away the sleeping bags. The rest of them are going home to make their excuses and change clothes and eat breakfast. Max hates to admit it, but even though she doesn’t want to force herself on the unknown family of her new friend, she’s still too terrified of the _bigger_ unknowns lying in wait for her at home. Her mind is too muddied and wrung out from last night – the last week, really – for her to predict and prepare for Neil’s or Billy’s or her mom’s reactions to her being gone for so long. Some small, logical part of her mind tells her that waiting is just going to make things worse, but she ignores it. It’s easier that way.

She can feel her shoulders slump as she nods. “If that’s okay.”

Lucas smiles sideways at her, like the idea that it _wouldn’t_ be okay is ridiculous. “Of course it’s okay. And besides, I don’t really want to walk home alone either.”

“Don’t you live next door to Mike?”

“Yeah, but he’s going to Hopper’s cabin to be with El, so it’s just us.”

The daylight is blinding. Reassuring, but blinding after everything. Autumn rips through the town with cold winds and dead leaves and spindly bare branches that reach towards the sky in vain. As they walk, Max can’t find the energy to make conversation but it’s alright, because Lucas can’t seem to either. With every other step she takes, movement flashes in her periphery. She knows it’s just the ghosts of everything she’s seen, the dark afterimages of nightmares made real, but the skip of her heart and the lurch in her stomach doesn’t. Lucas’ hand is swinging right there, just inches away from hers, and she doesn’t think he’d pull away if she took it. It’d be nice, having that warmth in her hand again. She barely had time to register it on the bus – grabbing his hand was a knee-jerk reaction. She needed something solid to hold on to, a reminder that there were other humans there with her. But thinking about it now, it _was_ nice. 

Lucas’ yellow-walled house is a blur. She tries her best to be polite when Lucas introduces her to his parents, and then they’re in his room, and then he’s showing her the bathroom. Distantly, she sees a soft pink towel folded neatly on the counter. Set out for her, most likely. She drops her mud-spotted, probably radioactive clothes on the tile and stands under the showerhead until the water runs cold. After, she changes back into her jeans and one of Lucas’ shirts that he offered her.

“I’d give you one of Erica’s but you’re twice her size,” he says. She shakes her head, tells him it’s fine. And it is. The cotton is clean and soft against her skin. It’s comforting, steadying.

Mrs. Sinclair, with the same gentle brown eyes as her son, gives Max a plate of scrambled eggs and toast and a fork. She isn’t hungry, not in the least, but she smiles and says thank you and forces it down anyways. Sometime in the afternoon (or at least she thinks it’s the afternoon), Lucas suggests they go for a walk. 

“Is there a park here?” she asks as they walk down his porch steps, zipping up their jackets. Surprise crosses his face for just a moment – it must be because all morning, she’s said a grand total of about twenty words – but then the look is gone, and he nods.

“Yeah, of course. There’s a few, actually, but there’s one near here that’s usually empty.”

“Okay. Cool.”

Again, they walk in silence. Her hair is wet and cold against the back of her neck, but it has the same grounding effect on her as Lucas’ shirt does. It reminds her that she can still feel things; she is still real.

They reach the park before long and like Lucas promised, it’s empty. Max makes a beeline for the swings; she hears Lucas chuckle at her quiet eagerness, and then he takes the swing next to her. She slowly pushes herself back and forth and tips her head up to the brilliant blue sky. She inhales, sharp, clean oxygen flooding her lungs. She doesn’t close her eyes. She can’t.

She realizes that Lucas is waiting on her to speak. Not in an impatient or expectant way; he’s just not forcing conversation on her. It’s a bit of a surprise when she finds that she wants to talk. Maybe it’s because it’s him.

“Thanks for, y’know, letting me shower and eat and stuff,” she says, glancing over to him. He smiles, already looking back at her.

“No problem. You can stay with me – I mean, us, for as long as you want. It’s no big deal.”

She shakes her head, her gaze falling back to her lap. “It’s okay. I’ll go home today.”

Lucas hesitates, and she already knows what he’s thinking. “Are you sure? I can go with you, if you want.”

The thought of voluntarily bringing sweet, courageous Lucas anywhere _near_ the violent maelstrom of Billy again makes her sick to her stomach. She keeps her tone neutral, almost normal. “Really, Lucas, it’s fine.”

It isn’t fine.

He shrugs. “Alright. But if you need me, or you want me there, just let me know, okay?”

“I will.”

Will she?

After a few more minutes of tranquil quiet accompanied by the creaking of the swings, the gnawing in the back of Max’s mind urges her to talk more. She knows now that it’s definitely because of Lucas. She trusts him. He understands her, or at least he tries to. He’s kind to her, and her heart is yearning for all the kindness she can get nowadays. And she likes him – oh, how she likes him already. Too much. It’s dangerous – not for her, but for him.

“Can I tell you something?” she says to the woodchips being pushed around by the toe of her shoe.

“Yeah, sure.”

She takes another moment, trying to figure out the words she needs. “I’m not…brave,” she finally says, softly.

Lucas stares at her. “What are you talking about? Of course you’re brave. You’re, like, the bravest person I’ve ever met. What you did last night, with the car, and with Billy and the needle and what you said to him –“

“It wasn’t like that. I was just trying to keep you guys safe and I had all this adrenaline and all this _anger_ and it’s like I wasn’t even thinking about what I was doing. It was _easy_ right then and there.” She lets out a heavy sigh, running a hand up and down the cold links of the swing chain. “But it isn’t like that one moment changes everything. I’m still really, really scared of him, Lucas. He still hurt you and Steve, and what if I made things worse? What if I go home and he – he –“ She can’t fathom it right now. She swallows back the rest of her sentence and moves on to a new one. “I don’t want you thinking I’m some kind of superhero or something. I’m not fearless, and I’m not really that brave.”

With a shallow breath, she finally looks up at him. His eyebrows furrow ever so slightly; she can’t tell what he’s trying to puzzle out. Finally, he shakes his head.

“Maybe it was just the heat of the moment, so what? You still _did it,_ Max. You were brave whether you admit it or not, and I know that you can be brave again if you want to be. That’s who you _are._ ” Lucas smiles at her again, his belief in her infallible, and she feels tears pricking behind her eyes. He reaches over and squeezes her hand. “You saved our asses, Max, even though it meant facing something that terrifies you. That’s _brave._ ” 

She can’t hold his gaze anymore. Her eyes fall to the faint purple bruises on the base of his neck, made visible in the sunlight. “I didn’t save _your_ ass,” she mumbles. 

“That wasn’t your fault, you know it wasn’t.”

“ _I_ put you in danger. He came after you because he knew you were my friend, he knew I liked you –“

“Max, he came after me because he’s a racist asshole. It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

Deep down she knows he’s right, but it’s hard to ignore the sirens in her head _screaming_ at her to push him away, to shut him out for his own good. She blows out a breath, letting some of the guilt and the tension leave her shoulders. All she’s left with is the numbness, but Lucas’ warm hand in hers is thawing it ever so slowly. She was right – it _is_ nice. And it isn’t even entirely romantic, she thinks. It’s an anchor to reality, something to hold on to so that she doesn’t float away in this new world he’s brought right to her doorstep.

After a long minute, she looks up at him, a new question in mind. Something that’s been bothering her ever since she first thought about it. “How do you…adjust?” she asks. “Like, do things ever go back to normal?” 

What she really means is _will the nightmares stop?_ but she knows he’ll understand. His reassuring expression from earlier fades away and he shifts in his swing, his hand still laced with hers in between them. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “After El sacrificed herself last year, and after everything we went through – it was hard. I guess it did get better for a little while. Sometimes I went a few days without thinking about it at all, and without waking up from nightmares. But this kind of stuff can really mess a person up, you know? It sucks.” He lets out a breathy laugh. “Sorry. That’s probably not making you feel any better.”

She shrugs. “At least it’s the truth.” 

“It shouldn’t be, though,” he sighs. He squeezes her hand again reassuringly and a rush of warmth soothes Max’s frazzled nerves. “It’ll be fine. _We’ll_ be fine. Really. I had my friends to lean on back then, and now you have us to lean on.”

Max grimaces. “I don’t think I have Mike.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, some lightheartedness returning to the atmosphere with the gesture. “You will eventually. I promise. And El, too – they’ll both love you. They just have to get to know you.”

Her heart lifts hopefully at his words. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

To her immense surprise she finds herself smiling at the prospect, and Lucas grins. It’s almost startling to see. “That’s better,” he says with an air of satisfaction, like he’s just fulfilled a task he was set.

“It feels better,” she admits. She glances down at their joined hands and decides on one more moment of truth, just for him, the first person to start breaking down her walls. After a beat of mustering up her courage, she says, “I like holding your hand.”

Lucas beams even wider, if it’s actually possible. “That’s awesome,” he says, his enthusiasm so, so endearing. “And great, and fantastic, and spectacular. You know what?”

“What?”

“I like holding your hand too. Like, a lot.”

She laughs, nodding even as her cheeks flush warm. “Awesome. I’m glad we’re in agreement.”

Lucas glances around the park for a moment, still smiling, and when he looks back at her, there’s new spirit in his eyes. “We’re going to be okay, Max. You know that, right?”

It feels like the truth. She takes a deep breath full of crisp autumn air and as she exhales it to the sky, a little bit more of her icy dread and worry and fear melts away. “Yeah.” Inhale, exhale. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! I'm on tumblr, @dustinhendrsn.


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